Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science/Archive3

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[edit] Difference between computer science and computing projects?

The difference between these two wikiprojects is unclear to me. Which topics are covered by one and which by the other? I only recently found out this project even exists although I've contributed substantially to many CS articles. Deco 20:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Welcome, we could use your help.
To me, Computer Science is a narrow subset of Computing. Computing covers everything related to computers in a general sense, such as business matters and using them on a day to day basis. Computer Science is the application of reasoning and (hopefully) scientific methods to discover fundamental characteristics of computing systems. Thus Microsoft belongs under Computing but not Computer Science. Programming language (which we are actively working on now, hint hint) is definitely under Computer Science. Ideogram 20:45, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
What's unclear to me is whether computer science related articles are dealt with by Project Computing and if so, how this project goes beyond that. That is, why is this project not redundant? Deco 21:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with projects having child projects that specialize in smaller areas. Within Project Computer Science we have Project Computer Languages and within that we have Project C++. Ideogram 21:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I find Computing to be more of a subset of Computer Science; Computing is the practical result of Computer Science, and Computer Science was around before the first computers even showed up. The science is about abstract concepts, while computing is about existing technologies. I see little overlap. ~ Booya Bazooka 21:27, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
The computing project has always seemed to me to have a much broader scope than they CS one - they cover application software, operating systems (products rather than design principles), and hardware details (CDROMs for example) that seem to fall outside the scope of the CS project, at least in its present incarnation. There's certainly some overlap in subject matter. But we also have overlap with the mathematics wikiproject as well. --Allan McInnes (talk) 23:26, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] contents box too narrow becauseof archive infobox

My browser window is only 640 pixels wide so the contents box gets squeezed to the point of unreadability. Can someone fix this so the Archive box goes above the Contents box? Ideogram 20:41, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. --Allan McInnes (talk) 23:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portal:Computer science

Fixed it up some. Check it out. Ideogram 12:13, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks much better. Thanks for taking the time to fix it up! --Allan McInnes (talk) 16:34, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Allan. It's fun making pretty pages. Ideogram 16:37, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pages needing attention

Can we regenerate the bot-generated pages under "Pages needing attention"? Some of them are redlinks now and I have also fixed some myself. Ideogram 12:39, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure who runs that bot: it's not under the control of WPCS. Based on the history of the "pages needing attention" page, I think it might be User:Beland, so you might try asking him about re-running the bot. --Allan McInnes (talk) 16:30, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
After careful reading I see it is run "when the developer has time". I guess I'll just wait. Ideogram 17:05, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] xx-stub

You know, there are other people who use stubs besides this wiki project. All of your two letter stub redirects and templates are hopelessly ambiguous unless one assumes already that one is talking aboput only computer science. I've sent all four redirects and the ai-stub to Stubs for deletion. Please keep in mind that stubs are foe everyone, not just your WikiProject and must be named accordingly, which is why we stub sorting folks strongly recommend that you first propose new stubs on our proposals page. After all, if you are going to enlist our help in finding you computer science stubs to be improved, doesn't it make sense to do so in a manner that doesn't cause potential disruptions for others? Caerwine Caerwhine 01:10, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I doubt most CS project members even knew about these stub redirects (I only found about them when I took a look at what you'd proposed for deletion). Please keep in mind that not everything created by (or used by) members of this project is "part" of the project. In fact, I can find no discussion of these redirects in our talk page archives. While I can appreciate that you and the other stub-sorters may find the redirects irritating, the condescending tone of your post isn't exactly conducive to friendly relations between projects.
That said, I personally have no problem with you deleting the redirects in question. --Allan McInnes (talk) 03:08, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Programming language

The Programming language article is presently undergoing peer review, and is also a candidate for being a "good article". If you have some spare time, please stop by the article and talk page, and help us to improve the article. In particular, we could use some help with providing inline citations and references for various claims made in the article. --Allan McInnes (talk) 19:50, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki with source codes of algorithms

Is there a Wikimedia foundation project which alowes collection and sistematiosation of source codes of computer algortihms? As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be one. If I'm right and there's no such project, do you people think such a project could be started? What I'm having in mind is setting up a enormous source code repository which would parallel the way in which Wikipedia works. For instance, we'd have "C language edition" with article called "foo" which would contain source code of the algorithm in C. Apart from the source code, it would have "interwiki links" to "Python language edition", "Common Lisp language edition" and such, where you could find the same algorithm implemented in another language. Then the categorising system would be set up, just like the one we have on Wikipedia, so anybody could easily find a function (s)he needs and use it (because, of course, the whole project would be LGLP). If an algorithm foo uses algoritm bar, it could be wikilinked. It seems to me a project like that would be unusable for a year or two (until it grows a bit), but with some effort we could build a finest source code repository in a variety of languages... Comments? --Dijxtra 13:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Talk to User:Deco. Ideogram 13:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
The closest thing being done under the aegis of the Wikimedia foundation is probably the various programming texts in the Wikibooks project. Outside of Wikimedia, User:Deco has created a Mediawiki-based wiki called LiteratePrograms, which contains literate versions of various algorithms and programs in a wide variety of languages. The license is MIT/X11, rather than LGPL, to allow the code to be more widely used. LiteratePrograms isn't quite like the algorithm repository that you describe, but it's broadly similar in its goals. I highly encourage you to contribute some articles. --Allan McInnes (talk) 15:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
If you're interested in building up a wiki code repository, please check out the Wikibook Algorithm implementation. This is precisely what you've described; the only difference is really that I've organized it by topic/algorithm rather than by programming language, but if we break up the programming languages into subpages instead of sections, we can attain what you're talking about also. The book is in very early development. ~ Booya Bazooka 06:54, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Computer science disambiguations

I've been looking around recently and I've noticed that there are a lot of computer science terms that need disambiguation. I've also noticed that there are many different ways that these names are disambiguated. For example, (computer science), (Computer), (computing), etc. This can be somewhat problematic when trying to look stuff up. I suggest that one term be selected for disambiguation (where possible), such as (computer science). Most of the actual renaming can probably be left to a bot. MagiMaster 09:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

If you check out computing, you'll notice that computing is a broader field that encompasses computer science as a sub-discipline. Thus, renaming all (computing) to (computer science) is probably not desirable. The reverse doesn't strike me as desirable either--if something is computer science specific, it should be disambiguated as such, I think. Regarding current usage, it would be helpful to standardize the way they are applied. Certainly many of the articles are currently improperly named (such as the examples you give above) and should be changed. You might pay WikiProject Computing a visit on this as well. -- – Zawersh 10:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stub icon

I'm swapping the new {{comp-sci-stub}} icon produced by this discussion () back to the old one (), just because it doesn't make sense for comp-sci-stub to be different from all the other stub templates that still use the older graphic. Change it back if you wish, but change all of them... ~ Booya Bazooka 00:03, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phishing

Phishing is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 22:04, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] C programming language

C programming language is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 22:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Java programming language

Java programming language is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality.

Sorry to hit you all with so many at once ... we need help :-) Sandy 22:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your thoughts needed

There is a straw poll on Talk:QDB#Poll on whether QDB should redirect to Bash.org (a popular IRC quote database) or to a disambiguation page including a similar project QDB.us. Your feedback would be appreciated. (Sorry if this is a little off topic).--Konstable 07:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Computer

Hey folks, we're trying to get a big reorganization of the Computer article underway with the ultimate goal of getting it to featured article status. Our current proposal is to make it a large hub article in the same spirit as Physics. Since topics relating to computers are diverse and numerous, we'd appreciate all the insights and help we can get from participants of the computer science WikiProject. So if you have a few moments, drop by the talk page and throw in your two cents. Thanks! -- uberpenguin @ 2006-07-19 21:47Z

Okay, we've rewritten it and I'm asking for peer review. If anyone would like to add their thoughts, please do so at Wikipedia:Peer review/Computer. Thanks! -- mattb @ 2006-11-12T01:07Z

[edit] Include Ubuntu?

I notice Ubuntu (Linux distribution) is a featured article. Should we include this in our list? As a Linux distribution the relevance to Computer Science is unclear, but we do have OpenBSD. --Ideogram 16:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

If it were up to me, I wouldn't include either of them. I see both articles as falling under the somewhat broader purview of the Computing wikiproject, rather than being a part of WPCS. Of course, I realize that not everyone will agree with that assessment. --Allan McInnes (talk) 17:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't include them either. If we'd add Ubuntu, we'd need to add all other distros and even M$ OSes. Don't think it is in the CS scope. Takhisis 08:21, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the above, falls under computing more than the CS wikiproject. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 08:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I have removed OpenBSD. --Ideogram 16:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New article: Cem Kaner

I'm not a part of this WikiProject, but I figured you guys would be the ones to tell that I added a bio for Cem Kaner, author of Testing Computer Software and co-founder of the Association for Software Testing. If it needs more/better categories, I thought you'd be the ones to know. It could use some secondary source references as well - all I've been able to find are primary sources, so it might be a bit one-sided. I already searched for and wikified references to his full name in other articles. --KGF0 ( T | C ) 21:16, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Career domains in computer science

The article Career domains in computer science was recently created. In its present state it feels (to me) quite unencyclopedic (more of a how-to guide). I'm unsure the article can be salvaged, and even more skeptical that it should be a standalone article (rather than a part of Computer science) even if it is salvagable. I have expressed my concerns on the talk page, but would appreciate getting some other opinions too. --Allan McInnes (talk) 20:09, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

It reads like original research. -- Koffieyahoo 04:27, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
It does appear to be original research, but the author seems willing to take criticism on board. That being said, career domains for CS are so many - I don't know how it can be made a good article. Takhisis 01:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Seems more like a wikibook skeleton actually. I don't normally crack open the encyclopedia for career guidance, no matter how well-written it might be. And without sources, how can we vouch for its accuracy? Stan 04:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmmmm... wikibooks is a good idea. Seems like it might be a much better venue for the kind of thing the original author of the article wanted to do. Don't know why I didn't think of it before. I think I'll suggest it as something for them to think about. Thanks for the idea! --Allan McInnes (talk) 04:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Having a book to cover original research and the how-to part, sounds reasoanble. Will create something at WB and then we can revisit salvaging the article. IMHO, I do not find it odd to seek an encyclopedia to understand various 'branches of application' where computer science is put to use. —Raanoo 12:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Please note that Wikibooks policy is to exclude original research. --Allan McInnes (talk) 14:11, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Business logic

... is up for deletion. This article has been around since late 2002. Gazpacho 16:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Initialize Article

I was searching several articles needed page and found Initialize. I was weary to just add it because I found references to initializer which redirects to Declaration (computer science). But this article doesn't explain what initialization really is in the context of a loop or array. Just to gain some insight, should this article be created? Or should a good definition of initialization be added to Declaration and have Initialization/Initialize redirect to it? If it should be added, should it be: Initialize, Initialization(which redirects to booting) and should (computer science) be added to it? Thanks for the insight or help. --White Pony | Θαλκ 04:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Probably the first question worth considering is whether initialize will ever evolve into an encyclopedic article. Wikipedia is not a dictionary or a how-to manual. How much is there to really say about loop or array initialization (from the perspective of an encyclopedia, rather than a how-to manual)? Do you have some good references that you might use to construct such an article? If the initialize entry will only ever be a definition then you might be better off adding it to Wiktionary instead (assuming it's not already there). --Allan McInnes (talk) 14:35, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Allan, I'll definately keep that in mind. In that context I suppose the Declaration article explains the idea well enough. --White Pony | Θαλκ 22:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox programming language

I'm going to try and add Infoboxes to all programming language pages that are missing them (except stubs, those w/o enough info to make one, and esoteric languages). All pages needing boxes listed below (not fully alphabetically ordered). Feel free to help. Track progress below. --Cybercobra 06:05, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

rest of list moved to WikiProject Programming Languages

[edit] Sidenotes while searching

  • Apache Rivet seems to be a programming system rather than a language per se.
  • Applicative seems to be a paradigm rather than a language.
  • Ch interpreter seems more an implementation than a language.
  • Comet (programming) seems more a technique than a language.
  • DotOrg seems more an architecture than a language.
  • EDeveloper seems more an environment than a language.
  • Free Pascal seems more a compiler than a language.
  • Hartmann pipeline appears to be a feaature of a programming language rather than a language itself.
Not so. Check out some of the papers referenced in the article, especially Melinda Varian's Plunging Into Pipes. RossPatterson 01:13, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inheritance semantics

I just stumbled across the Inheritance semantics article. I've never heard that term being used in the way the article in question is using it (as the name for an area of research), and the article looks to me like it might be original research. If you have any knowledge in this area, please take a look at the article, and add your thoughts to the talk page there. Thanks. --Allan McInnes (talk) 16:35, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of "files"

Some questions that would help to improve Computer file and File system:

  1. What was the earliest computer system with automatically retrievable, discrete, general-purpose, data objects?
  2. What was the earliest system to call these "files"?
  3. What was the earliest system that did not implemented the retrieval entirely in hardware?

Earliest I can find for 1 is the IBM 305 (the tracks on the disk), and earliest for 2 is CTSS. I suspect that files precede disk storage, though. Gazpacho 23:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Bear in mind that in the early stages, a file was simply an emulation of a tape/set of punched cards/other naturally-sequential data storage medium on a random access medium. So perhaps the concept wasn't used before the invention of disk storage? JulesH 10:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ackermann function

Ackermann function is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 15:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review of Perl 6

Howdy, Perl 6 was recently put up for GA review and was decline for GA status for a couple reasons (particularly style and breadth in coverage). One of the main editors has requested assistance in suggesting ways to improve upon the article. If someone here would like to comment on the article's talk page or in its section of the Good article review, I would appreciate your time. Thanks! Agne 19:39, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Programming language - GA Collaboration of the Week

Just noticed that Programming language has been made the current Good Article Collaboration of the week. So if you have some spare time, and an interest in helping out, you might want to stop by the Programming language article and give it some attention. --Allan McInnes (talk) 00:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for assistance on Flow-based programming

This article failed the GA (and GA/R) process! If anyone has time, I would very much appreciate assistance in raising it to GA standards, either by suggestions or actual editing. To tell the truth, I haven't had much luck over the years getting articles accepted in technical journals - maybe someone out there knows the secret! TIA. Jpaulm 18:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox for signals

I’ve been working on the signal-related articles, and they use a somewhat cumbersome infobox style made up of three cooperative templates, {{Signal}}, {{Sigstack}}, and {{SignalEnd}}. I’ve made up a new infobox template that performs the duties of all three, and I think looks better, too. For now, I have the template at User:Rob Kennedy/Infobox Signal. Compare SIGPOLL with User:Rob Kennedy/Signals. Are there any objections to my updating the signal articles to use the new infobox? Is it appropriate to make a new category called “Signals” for these articles, or would that be overkill? --Rob Kennedy 19:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Does anyone have a secondary source for geek license ?

Geek license is on AfD - debate is here. At present, it fails WP:NEO because no references in the article are secondary sources (articles about the history or meaning of the term) - they are all primary sources (examples of usage). It seems to me that there probably are secondary sources out there somewhere for a phrase like this that has been in common circulation for years. Does anyone know of any ? Gandalf61 09:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Emacs

Emacs is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 19:55, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intentionally incorrect code examples

Many articles have code examples. They often include examples of what not to do, especially for well-known or commonly made errors (e.g. off-by-one error). These are normally in <code> blocks just like the correct ones. My concern is that people looking for help may turn to Wikipedia skip straight to the blocks of code without reading the surrounding text. At best, they may be confused when the example doesn't seem correct, at worst, they may blindly reuse it in the own projects. There should be some sort of template or class used to visually inform the user that the code block is an example of incorrect code and should not be used. Something like a red background or a big warning sign watermark. I'm not sure the best way do it - maybe like how table styles are done? - but it would be helpful for our users. Pimlottc 15:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a valid concern. I'd however not rely on a color code or some other convention such as a background color. A comment within the code (such as /* THIS CODE DOES NOT WORK */) should do. Adding the watermark sign to it may be helful. For example:
code intentionally wrong
Probably this is too evident. Try some other color. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 09:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ubuntu (Linux distribution)

Ubuntu (Linux distribution) is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 16:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Peer review Web operating system

If time permits, please have a look at the peer review of the Web operating system article. This article attempts to document use of the term "web operating system" including the articles WebOS and Webtop as well as academic research -- to give the reader an orderly review of the subject. It's been tough, of course. All help appreciated. - JohnPritchard 11:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 00:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

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